The continuing increase in automobile traffic throughout the world, while bringing with it many conveniences and advantages, has had the corollary results of producing an increasingly higher incidence of fatal accidents, particularly resulting from collisions between vehicles. While vehicles have been equipped with bumpers and other shock absorption devices designed to reduce the force of impact, they are still characterized by a marked inadequancy to solve the problem of fatalities and serious injuries resulting from collisions. This is well demonstrated by the fact that, despite the equipping of almost all passenger vehicles with bumpers or the like, vehicle collisions result, all too often, in fatal or serious injury to the driver and passengers.
While most vehicles at the present time are equipped with seat belts and/or shoulder harness belts, many drivers and passengers of vehicles do not use these belts owing to the inconvenience of fastening them or fear of entrapment. Inflatable devices, such as bags, are not being proposed for use in vehicles to restrain the forward movement of the driver and passenger in the event of a collision. Such inflatable devices, however, have limited usefulness depending on the impact angle; may not be completely reliable owing to the complicated systems for inflating them in response to an impact; are accompanied by a large amount of noise when inflated rapidly in response to an impact; and seat belts would still be necessary with such inflatable devices for high speed frontal impacts and for side and roll-over protection.
It will be readily seen, therefore, that a need has arisen for a reliable passive restraint system for protecting the driver and passengers of a vehicle in the event of a collision, which provides the safety features both of seat and shoulder harness belts without the inconvenience and action required of the occupants to effect the system's performance.